


Resolve

by CheeseCroquette



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Half introspective, HurtNoctWeek, Self-Worth Issues, a little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 11:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13857066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheeseCroquette/pseuds/CheeseCroquette
Summary: Noctis overdoes it with the Ring. His friends are not happy with this.They're reminded of the consequences that comes with using it that they had forgotten.Hurt!Noct Week day 3: Ring of the Lucii





	Resolve

**Author's Note:**

> Probably been done a million times before, gonna do it again.

Seeing the person he was trained to protect fend for his life while trapped behind walls of electricity was torturing, and stricken with panic Gladiolus was at a loss for what to do. Thank the gods for Ignis. At least one of them still had their wits around them.

“Gladio, quick! There ought to be a kill switch nearby!”

“I don’t see it!” On the other side of the electrical barrier—this distasteful, damnable barrier—Noctis dodges to the side as a shock trooper makes to grab him, rolling away into grabbing distance of another. “Dammit!”

“Focus, Gladio!”

“I’m trying,” he grits through his teeth. Through his agitation at not being able to just charge in and take them down as per his duty, Gladio locates the panel in a niche wired into the wall. His hands hover uselessly over it. There’re so many buttons _why were there so many buttons?_

Noctis’s pained cry immediately draws both their attentions, but only Gladio could witness what unfolded inside.

“Noct!” Ignis goes to step forward but stops when he remembers he couldn’t. “Gladio! What’s happening?!”

Noctis had contacted with the powerful currents in a misplaced dodge, the space afforded to him inside too narrow than was conducive for battles. He fell away to the adjacent wall which he leaned against for support as he seized for a moment, a hand raised in front of him in a fruitless effort to block what was coming.

Or so Gladio thought. The prince’s shield could only watch in horrified awe as—a spell? It was unlike any he’d seen—the MT withered away before his eyes, even as it pressed heedlessly closer to Noctis, driven by its pre-programmed urge to kill any that stood in its way indiscriminately.

The Ring that Gladio only now noticed on Noctis’s finger was bleeding an unholy red, the glow a bright contrast against the blue of the electricity.

What Gladio had thought was dirt on Noctis’s arm was _glowing_. His arm looked like it was cracking apart, and he wanted to go in there immediately to make sure he wasn’t, that he wouldn’t break into pieces like his arm looked like it was trying to. What was it _doing_ to him?

“Gladio!”

The urgency and distress in Ignis’s voice snaps him out of his stupor and he’s faced once more with rows upon rows of hateful buttons. Oh, to hell with this.

His foot lands smack in the panel, and he’s rewarded with the satisfying hiss of sparks and the fizzing out of electricity.

***

Kneeling on the cold ground, Noctis finds his resolve.

It was a nice way of putting it, when it was obvious he had been driven to this decision only because he had been left with no other choice. Weapons gone, abilities sealed, surrounded by daemons. He couldn’t run away anymore.

The Ring of the Lucii was a blessing to the people of Lucis, a boon granted by the gods themselves, one of the only two things that had ensured Lucis’s continued survival in the war against Niflheim that had lasted more than a century until now.

It was a blessing to the people of Lucis—but a curse to the royal family. The burden of safekeeping both fell to the responsibility of a particular line who had been deemed worthy, and now…

And now, it was Noctis’s. It glints bright and potent in the darkness and quiet, the loneliness and despair that pressed in on all sides, interspersed with whispers of moving shadows he strained to discern and hushed murmurs from beyond the ring. So many, too many had sacrificed for this intricate bit of metal. How could it be anything but a curse?

He’s not ready, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be ready.

But bereft of a kingdom and king of nothing, Noctis puts on his birthright. He doubles over as he’s assailed with the collective voices of the past Lucian monarchs, whispering their way into his mind with words of welcome and thinly veiled impatience of his coming. Memories of the rulers of old teach him how to use it, how to channel the Crystal’s magic as his own.

And how it would sap away at his life as he uses it. A blood price each ruler had to pay.

Noctis had seen its effects first-hand. As it drained his father throughout the years, robbed him of his vitality and aged him at an atypical speed. And he would experience it first-hand now, too.

The magic is overwhelming, a heady rush of power pouring into his body fast and unrelenting, filling into nooks of his soul and making itself home as if it had always been there. It was too much, vast knowledge not his own threatening to split his head, a direct link to the Crystal as he’d never felt, raw magic at his fingertips as he’s filled to bursting and maybe he’s going to die here right now—

It stops all at once, he comes back to himself and the Crystal’s presence ebbs to a pulse at the back of his head. Urging him closer, urging him to find it. It couldn’t have been more than seconds as the daemons hadn’t caught up, but he felt aged with memories and knowledge not his own. He felt a stranger in his body.

-

The spells were easy enough to use, if it took an absurd amount of time to cast. He hadn’t expected the burns, but those faded easily enough.

Until it took longer, and longer, and longer each time he used it.

What he could sneak around and avoid, he did. But when he couldn’t, Noctis used the death spell the most, by virtue of it being the easiest to in terms of the conditions it required. Even if the feeling of _wrong wrong wrong_ that came with the siphoned energy plagued him. It made him feel dirty, taking a part of a daemon for himself. It made him feel weak and useless for needing to depend on something he never wanted. It made him more tired for all the energy it was supposed to restore.

_If a king cannot protect himself, how is he to protect others?_

“Oh my god, shut _up_.” A mocking laugh answers him.

And he was _tired_. Tired of feeling scared, tired of feeling lonely, tired of feeling weak, tired of _this fucking place_. Gladio was right on all counts. He was no king. The world really got the short end with him, Noctis laughs humourlessly, he was pathetic. And here he was, throwing himself a pity party with axe-wielding MTs and a disembodied voice for company.

It was one thing he didn’t need Ardyn to tell him.

He wants to take it off and never use it again, not after the lives of his closed ones it had robbed. But he’s king now, with a prophecy to fulfil and world he couldn’t let down. Survival wasn’t a choice—it was a duty. So he pulls on the Ring’s magic, the Crystal’s magic, and he pushes forward.

-

When he stumbles into Gladio’s waiting arms in fatigue and relief, the burning cracks take a full minute to recede—a sign he had been using it too excessively in too short a time. The discoloured skin faded slowly back into unblemished surface like it had never been there, a transition he had time getting used to that it doesn’t register anymore. The relief that swept through him at seeing his two friends near shatters him, and he could cry right then and there. But Prompto wasn’t there, still his biggest priority, and one of the main reasons they were here. They were missing one of their own, and he won’t stop 'til they get him back.

“Took you long enough,” Noctis jokes weakly when he finally catches his breath. The life force he drained merging with his own made him want to throw up. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the feeling that came with that particular spell. “Let’s go, Prompto sho—”

“Noct.” The concern in Gladio’s voice stops him in his tracks.

“…Yeah?”

“You okay?”

“Yes?” He looks himself down, not understanding what Gladio means, considering he doesn’t have any injury. Shouldn’t he be more worried about Ignis, anyway?

“You sure?”

The tentative truce they had forged after their recent bouts of arguments weighed on him, and he thought Gladio would back off after asking just once. He hadn’t expected him to press, nor move closer to take a closer look at his arm. But the pointed look at his hand made everything fall into place.

The tension he hadn’t realised was in his shoulders relaxes a little, before it tightens up further than before, because _oh_. He had been seen. And it was like revealing another unwanted weakness, something unbefitting of kings. Noctis really would never compare to his father, he would never be enough. He would never be worthy, just as Ravus had said all along. The Chosen King was just a huge joke—

“I’m _fine_. See? It’s gone.” He shakes his hand blithely at the taller man, and feels like a child who’d done something wrong when Gladio’s expression remains unchanged. The ring had also threatened to fly off his finger, the loose fit that it was, and he hoped no one had noticed how carelessly he had treated it.

“What’s gone?”

It reminds Noctis that Ignis was there too, but he couldn’t bring himself to explain. And anyway, it wasn’t important.

The “nothing” doesn’t leave his throat when his hand is captured by a bigger one. Inspecting the smooth, unmarred skin, the previous flaky discolouration was nowhere to be found. Noctis could see the gears turning in his head. Gladio was perceptive enough to put two and two together. And if Ignis had his sight, no doubt he would have in seconds.

When no answer was forthcoming, Ignis steps forward in mild frustration, wanting to check Noctis over himself. “Noct, are you—”

“It’s _nothing_.” Ha. “I’m fine, really.” He tugs his hand out of Gladio’s grip, and touches Ignis’s arm himself, in a bid to reassure his oldest friend. “Really,” he says again.

He glances at Gladio, daring him to say something. He doesn’t, and Noctis is internally relieved. The guilt rises again at Ignis’s still worried look, but they really should move on.

“C’mon, let’s go get Prompto.”

-

“Aren’t you using that a bit too much?” Gladio says, steadying him as he stumbles back.

Noctis’s head _ached_ from stasis, and he swallows against the nausea that made his head spin. “Shouldn’t you be looking out for Ignis?”

“Could say the same to you. Don’t avoid the question.”

“Gets the job done, doesn’t it?” Noctis says, just wanting the conversation to end.

Gladio doesn’t rise to the bait. “I could finish in half that time.”

It gets a surprised laugh out of him. “What _ever_ ,” Noctis says, punching his shoulder. He feels the excruciatingly slow replenishing of his magic together with the rising bile, and starts unsteadily forward.

The shaky steps doesn't sit well with Gladio, and he had to make sure. “You know you can depend on us, right?”

“Then try not to fall behind.” There’s a pause, and he doesn’t turn to look at Gladio when he allows: “…You can get the next one.”

***

The good news is: they found Prompto.

The bad? They’re surrounded by more daemons than they can handle, and their chances don’t look good at all. And Noctis could practically feel the winged daemon that had dogged his path lurking in the shadows, waiting for its chance to strike.

And he was so close to getting his magic back.

-

After they had found Prompto, the daemons' assault had taken an aggressive turn. But it wasn't just the daemons they had to contend with. Strewn across the place were abandoned magitek troopers, some lifeless, some roaming freely.

Unnerving were the stilted movements of the MTs decidedly different from those they had crossed before in the open fields; they moved like puppets with their strings cut, and a few times more murderous and persistent. Same for the goblins—those they had faced on Lucian soil felt weaker compared to those that inhabited the keep. And there were droves of them, an unending wave that just kept coming, turning up at almost every corner.

More unnerving still, was the flippant disregard Noctis used the ring with, if the after effects Prompto described to Ignis was anything to go by. Noctis didn't have any qualms in using it, it seems, as long as it didn't have any long-lasting effects.

It was strange, to not see Noctis warping in and out of sight, being able to keep up with him for once in his versatile battle style, refreshing to not have to run after him as he warps straight into the midst of their enemies. But it reminds him of the fact that Noctis’s magic was sealed, and it felt nothing short of a miracle that he had survived this long with the ring alone.

He had felt the power of non-elemental magic permeating through the area, vestiges of it lingering long after Noctis had done whatever it was he had tickling his senses. Gladio had chose instead to stick close to Noctis since they found him, a decision he fully endorsed, and Prompto had become his eyes. Noctis used the ring like a reflex whenever things started to take a turn for the worse, and it worried him that Noctis might be becoming too dependent on its power.

And now surrounded on all sides, Ignis sees the optimal recourse. He has a bad feeling about it.

-

Having his friends at his side made progressing through the levels so much easier. It didn't matter that Ardyn's taunts hit home. He didn't care. It was true.

It gave him the chance to just _breathe_ , not having to use the ring as much, not feeling the constant burn flaring under his skin.

But now, their exits were blocked, and they’re caged inside with no option to flee.

The ring on his finger pulses in taunting invitation.

 

"Herd them up! As close as you can!"

"Easier said than done, Noct! Pretty sure it's _us_ they're herding."

It fell to mostly Gladio and Prompto, but Noctis’s respect and pride fills him anew when a long dagger lands true in a goblin rounding behind Noctis. But their numbers were increasing despite their efforts in mowing them down, and an axe barely missing his neck heralded the gatecrashing of MTs.

Prompto yelps as a sneaky goblin trips him up, knocking his gun out of his hands.

"Prompto!" Noctis starts to veer in his direction, but Gladio was there bashing it in with a mighty swing of his shield.

"I got 'im! You just do what you have to!" Gladio may not like it, but he was a soldier. He knew not to let personal feelings interfere with battles. Noctis nods, and leaves the blond to him after throwing him a potion.

They really were lousy shepherds, Noctis thinks as he feels the presence of a wall behind him. No matter, it actually worked in his advantage, since they crowded in from the front—in one direction.

With a fortifying breath, Noctis pulls on the Ring.

The air above splinters with crystalline cracks with the surge of magic, and a burst of light blinds the room as the fabric of reality sunders and a void yawns open. Goblins and wraiths alike are wrested inside by invisible claws one by one, figures distorting as they’re sucked in with little resistance. Their shrieks echo as they try to get away, but they’re wrenched back each time. Noctis feels the fire in his veins, familiar by now, watches with grim satisfaction as majority of them are pulled in.

He bites back a wince when he feels sharp pricks in his calf. A snaga nearby had dragged itself closer without him noticing, and the hand it had wrapped around his ankle sank its claws in to anchor it down. It had realised he was the cause of the loss of so many of its brethren, and likely thinks he would be the safest place to be until it ended. He staggers under the weight of another that jumps onto his back.

But the ring spares none that stood against the king, and it wasn't long before they too were sucked inside. A pained sound escapes him as claws dragged painfully across his leg as it goes.

Taking their energy for his own might have left him with a feeling of wrongness, but this particular spell seemed to take from his very soul. It required a lot of magic, and it drained it _fast_ , guaranteeing a straight route to stasis each and every time. Noctis had to concentrate on holding it, maintain that tear in space to purge the vicinity of daemons. They needed to be gone so he could keep his friends safe, a poor job he seemed to be doing thus far.

They all had scars to prove it, physical and emotional—marks on their skin they didn't have when they set off from Insomnia. All because of him. If they hadn’t met him, hadn’t known him…

His magic had drained by then, and he doesn't know how he's still fuelling the spell, but he couldn't let it end just yet. It took all he could to remain standing, but there were still too many, shrieking at him in blatant contempt and hostility. Not enough.

"Shit, someone make him stop—"

“Noct!”

Through the haze of red, he could make out the struggling figures scratching at the ground in a bid to escape the pull to no avail, and it was gratifying to see them diminishing one by one. A wave of light-headedness washes over him, and he falls to a knee, something warm dripping from his nose. The spell remains.

He won't let any get past him, they all had to go. If he could just hold it a little longer...

"God dammit, get outta my way—"

It's like combusting from the inside, a slow burn that cooked him alive and then some more. From the corner of his eye, he sees and feels the burns sneak up his arm more violently the longer he holds it, but not yet—

"Enough!!"

_But it hurts, it hurts hurts—_

-

The daemons were scrabbling away desperately from the void in the middle of the room, only to meet with weapons that drove them back into the pull of the spell as Noctis’s friends fought to get to him.

Noctis was _burning_ , cracks splitting up his arm and what they could see of his face. His skin was fissuring like earth, as if molten magma ran through his veins instead of blood. It quickly turns an ashen grey, but the fire beneath his skin doesn’t stop blazing.

It was the first time since Altissia that Gladio was glad that Ignis couldn’t see.

Gladio was closest to Noctis. Prompto's shots were nearly drowned out, but he sees the bullets hit their marks, clearing the path in front of him. And dodging the reaching arms of a wraith, he lunges the rest of the distance.

***

When Noctis opens his eyes on his next blink, it’s to Prompto’s and Ignis’s face hovering over his, Ignis a warm presence behind him. The ceiling was visible again. The daemons? Gladio?

“Noct!” Prompto sounded so panicked, but he couldn’t for the life of him wrap his head around why. Until he catches sight Prompto desperately cracking potions over the mess from his neck and below. The marks had spread further than before.

The room was spinning, and he groans when he closes his eyes and the tilting continues. But at least it wasn’t burning anymore. He calls the blond’s name, and succeeds on his third try. “…Prompto, it’s okay.” More importantly, were the daemons gone?

Prompto seemed to have been reduced to a litany of "Noct" and "shit" but Ignis was quiet, lips were drawn in a tight line, a hand on his chest as if to make sure he was still breathing. Prompto’s hands don’t stop, but he’s vehement when he says, “it’s _not_ okay!” He takes the next potion Ignis holds out to him. Did those even work? But the cool liquid felt wonderful on Noctis’s heated skin. “This is not okay, Noct! You look like charcoal!” His mouth twitches. “This isn’t funny!”

He tries to get up, and his vision swims.

“What are you _doing_?” Prompto near shrieks, and Ignis’s hand pressed down on him firmly. He doesn’t think he even budged. His head felt like stuffed cotton, but he could still hear sounds of battle nearby. Stasis was always a bitch, but it hasn’t been this bad before.

“Gladio—”

“—is handling it.” Ignis runs a careful hand over the scarred skin. Disapproval simmered in his tone. “I don’t think you need me to tell you that was reckless, Noct. You could have stopped it long before it got this bad.” The guilt in his stomach makes him feel sicker, but he had no regrets. They were safe.

Ignis sighs, brushes his bangs away from the right side of his face and lays a cool hand on his cheek.

“You’re not alone, Noct.”

But that was exactly it, he needed to protect them—

“And we can protect ourselves.” It was eerie how Ignis could still read him so well despite not being able to see. “And we’re supposed to protect _you_.” That…he can't argue with.

There’s a gentle swat to his forehead. “Ow.” But Ignis’s frown isn’t as severe.

“Don’t _do_ that again,” Prompto says when he finally calms down. All he wanted to do was pull off that ring and throw it far, far away from his friend where it can’t hurt him again. Even though technically it did just save their lives.

Why would anybody even _want_ it? Noct shouldn’t have to wear it if he didn’t want to, he doesn't care what Gladio says, not if it does that. The image of the black hole and wretched daemons was seared into his mind, the damage on Noctis all he could see.

“Shit,” he says again. “That was scary.”

“Sorry,” Noctis apologises, blinking his eyes as the walls finally stop moving. Then, “badass scary?”

The blond thinks about that. “Badass scary,” he agrees. “But still scary. Don’t-do-it-again scary.”

The room went quiet, and Noctis shifts his head to see Gladio prowling the space from one end to another, checking just outside the doors too for good measure. Noctis pushes himself up to his friends’ protests, and braces against the nausea that assaulted anew. That troublesome daemon hadn’t made an appearance, but Noctis knew first-hand how good it was at biding its time. They couldn’t stay here for long, but he doesn’t think he can stand yet either. He might have overdone it, a little bit. Not that he’s going to admit it.

"Gladio!" Ignis calls, and it wasn’t long before he’s kneeling on Noctis’s other side.

He curses when he takes in Noctis fully, not having the chance to earlier. “Dammit, kid.”

“I’m _fine_.” His head throbs in disagreement.

"It’s not safe here, we need to find a place to rest. Gladio, I'll need you to take Noct. Prompto, both of us will take point." Ignis instructs succinctly. "I'll need you to lead."

“I can _walk_ —”

“Roger! I think there was a dorm some ways back, I’m sure no one would mind.”

“Excellent. Let’s make haste.”

Noctis wants to object, because he doesn't _need_ to be carried, jelly legs notwithstanding, nor could he allow Ignis to place himself at the forefront of danger when he's still adjusting. He's held up admirably, Noct honestly couldn't say he could do better in his shoes but—

"Ignis," Noctis mumbles in protest when Gladio goes to pick him up, feeling ridiculously tired. More than the time they had trekked through the open fields for more than twenty-four hours while waiting for their bounty to show up. He hadn’t felt like this since the time he first started training with magic and kept sending himself into stasis multiple times a day. Oh.

“Hey,” Gladio says softly, catching his attention while shifting him onto his back. "Give him some credit. You might still be trapped way back there if it weren’t for Iggy."

“But—”

“Don’t you trust us?” He cuts in.

“Y’know I do,” Noctis mumbles back immediately, slack against his shoulders. It was cold, now, and Gladio’s back was comfortably warm. Sleep was a siren’s call.

Gladio smirks. “Then let us do our jobs, princess.”

***

They’re alarmed when his head lulls on Gladio’s shoulder, but they weren’t surprised to find Noctis asleep. Noctis always had the tendency to drop off as soon as he could whenever he had overused his magic. His pallor was a step up from its previous pallidness, and the ashen burns were slowly flaking off to reveal new skin.

They pick up the pace. The sooner they could get somewhere relatively safe, the better. This place, devoid of life and infested with daemons had made them all jumpy.

And most of all, it seemed, Noctis. They’d noticed the ball of nerves he had become. Treading everywhere quietly, always looking over his shoulder, always hesitant about crossing over a shock trooper for some reason. The way he backs away like a frightened rabbit when he turns a corner and sees the lifeless hull he almost stepped over on the ground. Pretending he hadn’t been spooked, affecting indifference yet all but running past it after. The visible relief when nothing happened.

Gladio had noticed Noctis subtly taking stock of these tight spaces between the walls when they passed through narrow corridors, but it didn’t make any sense to him. He gets his answer in two units of those malformed troopers lurching erratically around the corner. Noctis had backtracked immediately, looking to duck into one of those spaces on what seemed like instinct, before he sees Gladio at the ready behind him, looking surprised like he just remembered they were there.

Times he forgets he has a sword, forgets he has _them_ and raises an arm to cast macabre spells they didn’t want to see again.

The glow of the ring was a constant presence, almost seemingly gleeful that it had claimed Noctis as its own.

It felt wrong, that the chancellor had been leading them on a relatively safe route through Zegnautus, when it seemed he had done the exact opposite for Noctis.

He stuck close to them, as if afraid of getting separated again, turning around every so often to make sure they were still there and not some hallucination. And there’s no way that scumbag hadn’t been taunting Noctis too.

It made him angry, it made Gladio feel like he had _failed_. He was going to kill him. He was going to _wring_ Ardyn’s neck with his own scarf, hack him into a million pieces and set him on fire with the spell flask he still had in his possession. And it still wouldn’t be enough.

But first things first, they’re going to get Noctis’s magic back, so he won’t have a reason to use the ring unless absolutely necessary. There was only one way Noctis could have survived this long without his magic, and while they knew they had the ring to thank for, it gave rise to complicated feelings, knowing what it took from him in return.

The Ring had taken too much, and they couldn’t let it take Noctis too.

***

When Noctis wakes from dreams of narrow spaces and red eyes with fear lodged in his throat, it takes him a while to notice Gladio in the chair beside his bed.

“Bad dream?” Gladio asks in a quiet voice.

“…Something like that.” The skin on his arm had regained its usual paleness, and while the tiredness still pressed heavy on his eyelids, it was miles better than before.

When Gladio doesn’t reply, Noctis looks up, and catches him watching the Ring apprehensively like it was a wild animal. It was a little comical, if he was honest.

“…Thought you wanted me to wear it.”

“I did.”

“Not anymore?” Gladio stays resolutely silent.

But Noctis was more than his liege and king, and he hears what Gladiolus doesn’t say. It makes Noctis smile, because it feels like he had his friend back for the first time in a while.

“Ignis? Prompto?”

“Sleeping, like you should be.”

“Aren’t you?”

“In a while.”

“I can take next watch.”

“Nice try.”

In the bunk bed, Gladio standing guard, Noctis is the safest he can be behind enemy lines. Funny, as the last few times he had been in one was alone. But he fights sleep, the little shut-eye he caught in between his treks through the endless corridors had only made him more tired after, and this place had given him a whole new bunch of nightmare fodder he wasn't keen on returning to. Him hiding like a rat hoping he wouldn’t be sniffed out by the MTs honed in on him was just the tip of it.

“Rest. The Crystal can wait a few more hours,” Gladio says, ruffling his hair. It makes him feel warm and safe, feels a little bit like home away from home, so Noctis does.

 

 

-

“Do you…do you think, that if we— _when_ we take the Crystal and Insomnia back, that Noct won’t…won’t need to use the ring anymore?”

“It’s hard to say for sure at this point, but I pray that it will be so.”

“We’ll make it so. We take back what’s ours, banish the daemons and make sure there’ll no longer be a need for a Wall.”

“…And the Ring will be just that: an accessory.”

“You make it sound so easy! Like we’re not currently smack middle of empire territory right now. It’s not like they’ll just let us walk out with the Crystal.”

“You’re free to leave, y’know. You of all of us are under the least obligation to throw away your life for this.”

“…Are you kidding? No way.”

“Well then, guess we’ll just have to drive it into his head that we’re here to stay.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I’ll admit that I just wanted to write the part about Noctis being jumpy. It should be traumatising! It was traumatising (for me)!


End file.
